brainpopfandomcom-20200223-history
Strings/Transcript
Transcript Silhouettes of a harp, a guitar, a violin, and a piano are shown. Text reads: The Mysteries of Life with Tim and Moby. A man, Tim, plays the violin to piano accompaniment by a robot, Moby. Tim makes a mistake, and Moby frowns at him. MOBY: Beep! TIM: Geez, I'm sorry. You're too strict! Tim holds up a letter and reads from it. TIM: Dear Tim and Moby, I want to know how stringed instruments make such beautiful sounds. From Cass. Well, they can make pretty ugly sounds, too. But no matter what kind of noise they make, the sound comes from the vibration of strings. The sounds vary depending on how thick the string is, how long it is, and how much tension it's under. The camera zooms in on the middle of a guitar. A hand plucks a string, which vibrates and emits a noise. Then, one hand holds down the same string, and another plucks it again. It emits a higher noise. TIM: How it's played makes a big difference, too. A string can be plucked, which is kind of like flicking it with a thumb, finger, or small piece of plastic. It can be struck, or hit, with a small hammer. Or it can be bowed, which is kind of like rubbing. A guitar is shown in someone's hands. The person plucks a string with his left hand and slides his right hand down the neck, creating a bending pitch. Next, a small mallet is shown hitting a string, producing a sound. Finally, a man is shown bowing a violin held under his chin. TIM: If you've ever stretched a rubber band between your fingers and plucked it, you know how something vibrating all by itself doesn't necessarily sound very loud or all that pretty. So strings are almost always joined to something called a resonator, a hollow structure, usually made out of wood or metal. A guitar is shown. The top comes off, revealing the hollow inside. TIM: A resonator amplifies the sound waves from a vibrating string. In other words, it makes the sound louder and fuller. In most cases, a resonator is just the body of the instrument. If a stringed instrument doesn't have a resonator, its sound can be electrically amplified through loudspeakers! The top of the guitar reattaches to the body. Next, a man is shown playing an electric guitar that is plugged in to an amplifier. TIM: The oldest kind of stringed instrument was probably a lyre, which was popular with the ancient Greeks. A harp is another stringed instrument that’s been around a long time. Harps can be really tiny or really huge! A Classical-style drawing shows a seated man in a toga playing a handheld stringed instrument that looks like a small harp. Then, a woman is shown seated with a harp on her lap. The harp morphs into a handheld size and then into a size much larger than the woman. MOBY: Beep? TIM: Oh, a harp's resonator is in the arm nearer to the person playing. Nowadays, the most popular stringed instruments are probably the guitar and the piano. The camera zooms in on the base of the harp. Next, a guitar and a piano are shown. MOBY: Beep? TIM: Yep, you can see the strings if you look Inside a piano. See, the lower-pitched strings are long and thick, and the high-pitched ones are short and thin. When you press a key, a felt-covered hammer hits one of the strings, producing a sound. Just like with harps and lyres, each string in a piano has a fixed pitch. A piano with an open back is shown. The camera zooms in on the strings, which are thicker on the left and thinner on the right. Next, a keyboard is shown beneath a mallet and a string. A finger presses a key, and the mallet strikes the string to produce a sound. TIM: But in stringed instruments with necks, like the guitar, you can change a string's pitch by pressing on it in different places. That changes the length and tension of the part of the string that's vibrating, which affects the pitch. A man is shown playing the guitar while sliding his left hand up and down the neck. This shifts the pitch of the string he plucks. TIM: The stringed instruments found in orchestras have necks too. But unlike the guitar, these instruments are played with a bow, a strong, bendy stick with a ribbon of horsehair stretched across it. The hair is rubbed with resin, which produces friction on the strings. An orchestra has four main types of stringed instruments. From highest to lowest pitch, they’re the violin, the viola, the cello, and the double bass. A seated man playing the violin, a seated woman playing the cello, and a standing man playing the double bass are shown. The camera zooms in on the bow that the violinist is using. Then, only a bow is shown. A small resin applicator slides along the horsehair part. Next, four silhouettes of people playing instruments are shown. Each is highlighted as Tim names it. The viola is a slightly larger violin; the cello is a much larger, upright violin rested on the ground; and the double bass is a much larger cello that requires the musician to stand. TIM: Some stringed instruments, like the double bass, also have a life outside the orchestra. Both large, wooden basses and smaller, electric ones are used in jazz and dance bands, for instance. A man in a jazz band is shown standing and plucking a double bass. Another man next to him is seated and playing the guitar. MOBY: Beep? TIM: Yeah, those are only some of the stringed instruments out there. Versions of the violin and the viola are used all over the world: in South India and North Africa, in modern Greek and Arab music, and in western folk music, to name a few. And there are tons of other stringed instruments. A series of people playing instruments scrolls across the screen in front of a world map. A man in a turban is shown sitting and playing a thin stringed instrument with a large bow. A shirtless man in a loincloth is using a small bow to play a thin stringed instrument held against his chin. Another man is resting a tall, very thin stringed instrument on his lap and rubbing a bow on it. A fourth man in a cowboy outfit is playing a fiddle with a bow. More stringed instruments of varying shapes and lengths are shown. The camera zooms in on the hurdy gurdy. It looks like a bulky violin with small keys along one raised edge over the body. TIM: My favorite is called the hurdy gurdy. I just love saying that. Hurdy gurdy. Hurdy gurdy. Hurdy gurdy. MOBY: Beep? TIM: Oh, yeah, they're not easy instruments to play. Tim and Moby begin to play their instruments again, and again Tim makes a mistake. Moby frowns. TIM: Uh, especially when robots are staring at them. Tim and Moby stare at each other, and then Moby walks away. He is then shown listening at a closed door with a pleased expression. Beautiful violin sounds are heard from within. Category:BrainPOP Transcripts Category:BrainPOP Arts & Music Transcripts